1. Field
The following description relates to a force sensing apparatus and a robot arm including the same, and more particularly, to a force sensing apparatus, such as a force sensing apparatus installed at an operational end of a robot arm in order to measure forces acting on the operational end of the robot arm (particularly, a three-axis force sensing apparatus capable of sensing forces of three or more degrees of freedom), and a robot arm, such as a surgery robot arm, for example, including the force sensing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Robots for diverse uses have been developed and commercialized in line with the advances in robot technology. For example, a remote-controlled surgery robot connected to a surgical part of a patient assists a surgeon in conveniently conducting minute surgical operations by viewing the surgical part remotely via an endoscope screen. When using the surgery robot, hand shake caused as the surgeon moves his or her hand may be compensated for, and a remote surgical arm may reproduce a scaled-down motion of the surgeon's hand, and thus, precise operations may be conducted.
However, currently commercialized surgery robots provide only image information about a surgical part via an endoscope, and touch information, which can be obtained in general surgical operations, is not provided. That is, compared to a surgical operation actually performed using the hands, it is difficult for a surgeon to accurately figure out the amount of force applied to a surgical part by a surgical instrument attached to a surgery robot arm. Thus, if information about the intensity of a contact between the surgical instrument attached to the surgery robot arm and the surgical part is provided to the surgeon, the information about the contact, together with the image information, may be helpful for minute operations needed for cutting, cauterization, or suture, for example, of the surgical part. To this end, it is important to accurately measure forces acting between the surgical instrument attached to the surgery robot arm and the surgical part.
Accordingly, installment of a delicate force sensing apparatus at an operational end of a surgery robot has been researched. However, currently suggested force sensing apparatuses are not capable of accurately measuring forces in each direction, it is difficult to mount force sensing apparatuses on an arm portion of a surgery robot in a limited space, or such force sensing apparatuses may malfunction in an environment where a strong electromagnetic field exists. In addition, the range of forces measurable by the currently suggested force sensing apparatuses is relatively small.